This is it–the final week of our Year 5 Kickstarter, and to be honest, it’s going to be a nail-biter…

We’ve got cool plans for Year 5, and we’re really excited about our expanded line-up, but we can’t continue without your help! We pay all our creators for their pages that run in the magazine, and the additional costs of staffing, servers, and maintenance do add up. If you haven’t had the chance to check out our Kickstarter yet, it’s not too late! If you’ve already donated, please consider sharing with like-minded friends who love comics, light novels, games, and the Female Gaze. <3 We’ve still got some great rewards tiers available, from ebooks and paperbacks, to being able to read all 5 years of Sparkler in magazine form, to amazing commissions from some of our favorite creative partners. You won’t want to miss out!

We’re proud to welcome yet another new addition to the magazine: straight from the submissions pile and onto this month’s cover, the first installment of the drama-romance-sports comic “Null Point” from creator Amara Sherm! We’ve been dying to do a character-driven sports story for ages, and this one hits all the right buttons with a mighty backhand! Check it out. :-D

We’ve been busy behind the scenes, too! From new ebooks to bonus content to updating the book Kickstarters we ran earlier this year, we’ve been tackling our backlog and getting ready to launch into this new year of Sparkler–which begins right now, since this very issue is the start of Year 5 (and we wanted you to see what’s in store for 2017-2018). There are also a number of little upgrades we’ve been adding to the site, including a “newest page” button for comics instead of “newest chapter,” a change due to popular demand. Hooray! Our hard-working web techs are just some of the folks you’ll keep employed by helping to fund the Year 5 Kickstarter–Sparkler really takes a village to put together, and it’s a village that wants to get you sweet fiction all year long. We’re eager to keep the momentum going for the rest of 2017 and beyond!

Welcome to the hottest part of the Summer of Sparkler. :-D We’ve got yet another great debut this month: the start of Tacto’s fantastical ballet-piano romance “Firebird”! We’ve wanted to work with Tacto for ages (particularly because she’s done amazing work with Cherry Bomb side stories), and we’re thrilled to finally get the chance, especially on such an innovative and exciting project. We hope you love it as much as we do!

And that goes along with new installments of Orange Junk (new careers and cute phone chats!), Knights-Errant (featuring a particularly perfect mix of emotional torture and drunken flirting!), Magical How? (scary fairies!), Yellow Hearts (magic and memories!), Sunshine Boy (drama and trauma?!), and Uncanny Valley High ([virtual] teenage hijinks continue!). Plus we’ve got a podcast about NaNoWriMo and game jams, and how having a deadline and a community can help you reach your creative goals. It’s a whopping seven new comic chapters and the podcast in this special (giant) issue, continuing the jam-packed Summer of Sparkler!

And speaking of goals, it’s that time of year again…where we’re launching a new Kickstarter to fund Year 5 of Sparkler Monthly! Your support has been our foundation since our beginnings back in 2013, and we’re eager to keep going for another year, bringing you great content in comics, prose, and audio (and maybe more?!). We’ve brought in a lot of new and exciting series this year, but we can’t keep the magazine going without your help. We’ve been evaluating different ways of keeping Sparkler open, and our regular Memberships, which run in parallel to the yearly Kickstarter, are always a key way, but selling year-long memberships (plus ebooks and paperbacks) in this Kickstarter is still the best way to keep things rolling and make sure our creators get paid–and to ensure we can keep content coming to YOU, our beloved audience, month after month. We’ve got about five weeks to hit our goal, and we have special ~bonus incentives~ in the Kickstarter itself (check out the first one we’ve announced about a Sunshine Boy future!boys bonus), so please help us get the word out so we can keep great stuff coming your way!

And as always, thank you so, so much for your support all these years. <3 Let’s do this!

One week until summer officially begins in our corner of the world, but we’re going to get a jump-start on it, since it’s a particularly exciting one for us here at the Sparkler offices. We’ve got a whopping SEVEN new chapters (all from different series!) out this month, including another new comics serial joining our line-up! The days are nice and long and school’s on break, so it’s the perfect time to dive in your favorite Sparkler stories and maybe even find something new that you love. <3 We’re going to have special deluxe-sized issues all summer, as thanks for all your support over the past year (hooray Magical How Kickstarter! In right under the wire!) and as we prepare for our big yearly Kickstarter for Sparkler Year 5. Woo!

First up, we’re psyched to have Uncanny Valley High joining the magazine! High school is weird enough, but imagine if you were part of a nearly-but-not-quite-real simulation. It’s all the expected problems of grades and romance and angst, but with glitchy software, slow render times, and a near-constant sense that something is just a little off… We’ve also got fresh installments of new favorites Sunshine Boy and Yellow Hearts, the latest chapters of the fantastic light novels Decoy and Retrofit (from creative team powerhouse Bell and Hazel) and the always clever and spooky Dead Endings 2: Dead Leads, and new chapters of old favorites Orange Junk and Knights-Errant—with Louise having a moving father-daughter moment and Oz trying to liquor up Wil, respectively. :3 Plus, we’ve got a brand-new podcast where the Sparkler team is joined by Magical How creator Eurika Yusin Gho and Zoey/Capo of podcast Gutter Queens (and video game Out of Sync) fame to talk Wonder Woman and action/adventure stories told through the Female Gaze.

But that’s not all! We have even more new releases this month: Before You Go story #3 Now and Then is now completed online and available as an ebook; the June Sparkler Survey is up, ready for your feedback and offering a cool raffle at the end; and we’ll have a booth at Connecticon this July, so come see us! And in our pursuit to make the Sparkler experience as fun and convenient as possible, we’re in the process of updating many of our systems, which includes…

A brand-new Patreon option for Sparkler membership, if it’s more convenient for you to sign up there! The Patreon route will get you the same free member issues, VIP files, and Cherry Bomb products you download through membership on our site, just delivered through their system, if you’re already on Patreon and want to grab all your stuff in one place. :D This option was added by popular demand~

This month we’ve got a special treat: an EXTRA LONG (200 pages) all-comics issue! We’ve brought a couple of great ongoing series into the fold these last few weeks, the first being the magical and mystical Yellow Hearts, and the second being the dramatic and elegant Heart of Gold, and now they’re being joined by the precious and precocious Sunshine Boy! A slice-of-life story about Kelly, a sweet but awkward young boy who’s nervous about moving to a new town, and whose parents are adoring, but busy dealing with some of their own issues…until he meets Grey, the outgoing boy next door, and they become fast friends. We’ve got almost an entire graphic novel’s worth of content going up at once–two chapters and the start of the third–so there’s more than enough story for you to fall in love with, just as we did!

Plus, two current favorites, Orange Junk and Knights-Errant, also have new pages this month! Louise decides to find a part-time job to help out her family and figure out what she wants from life, while the Margrave accidentally lets some of Wil’s secret slip to Vitturi…!

And as an Orange Junk bonus, our Sparkler Podcast for the month features creator Heldrad, fresh from the Toronto Comic Arts Festival! She’s always a pleasure to talk to, so enjoy her chat with Sparkler editors Lianne & Becca. <3

We’ve launched another new initiative this month: the Sparkler Survey. The May edition is currently up, and you can fill it out in about two minutes. Your feedback helps us tailor Sparkler to your interests–and this month you can vote on our Tokyo Demons Kickstarter keychain and dakimakura characters, too! A new survey will be up every month as we try to make your Sparkler experience as awesome as possible. :-)

We’re also about halfway through our Kickstarter to print Magical How Vol. 1, with a little over 50% to go! Thanks as always for your help and support on that front–we all love cute boys in pretty dresses, and we’re super eager to see this go to press ASAP!

]]>http://sparklermonthly.com/2017/05/09/magical-how-vol-1-kickstarter-and-new-comic-series-heart-of-gold/feed/0Spring has sprung, and the Summer of Sparkler is on the way!http://sparklermonthly.com/2017/04/19/spring-has-sprung-and-the-summer-of-sparkler-is-on-the-way/
http://sparklermonthly.com/2017/04/19/spring-has-sprung-and-the-summer-of-sparkler-is-on-the-way/#respondThu, 20 Apr 2017 01:09:51 +0000http://sparklermonthly.com/?p=53000Happy April, Sparkler fans!

We’re thrilled to present our latest issue, headed by the launch of a brand-new Sparkler series! The fantastic Yellow Hearts is moving from Tapastic/Tapas to join our line-up, and it’s over 50 pages long (including 6 brand-new pages) already, all of which can be downloaded in this issue. We’re sure you’re going to love it–Yellow Hearts’ captivating fantasy world, focus on found family, and marvelous character designs all jumped out at us immediately as something we wanted to have in our magazine. Please join us in welcoming the creator Keezy Young to Sparkler! \^o^/

We’ve also got Knights-Errant back after its brief hiatus, with a whopping 8 new pages in the issue, so we’re back to a twice-a-week release schedule on the site. Hooray!! It’s time for some snarky backstory and light torture–our favorite! This issue also has a Magical How? short story, funded by the success of our Sparkler Year 4 Kickstarter–did you ever wonder how Gabe found out that Booker is gay? The answer is a real hoot! Plus, we’re in love with the hilarious and sweet ending to Before You Go: Now and Then while shivering at the thrilling new chapter of Dead Leads. It’s a fresh batch of chapters for the spring, all ready for you to enjoy!

What’s coming up on the horizon? Well, now that our submissions are complete, you can look forward to a lot of new content starting in the magazine over the next few months, in a little initiative that we’re calling The Summer of Sparkler! It was great to have so many people pitch us such exciting stuff, and we’re psyched to get to share it with all of you. Stay tuned to our socialmediafeeds to make sure you don’t miss a thing. <3

Also, our crew will be at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) next month, along with the fantastic Heldrad, creator of Orange Junk…and we may have some fun new merch along with us?! Come by to say hi, get some books signed, and pick up the latest and greatest from the Sparkler Shop!

XOXO,

The Sparkler Team

]]>http://sparklermonthly.com/2017/04/19/spring-has-sprung-and-the-summer-of-sparkler-is-on-the-way/feed/0March Madness!http://sparklermonthly.com/2017/03/29/march-madness-2/
http://sparklermonthly.com/2017/03/29/march-madness-2/#respondWed, 29 Mar 2017 04:17:07 +0000http://sparklermonthly.com/?p=52475Where did this month go?! Between conventions and travel and Kickstarters and production delays, it’s been a crazy March here at the Sparkler Offices (in all our varied locations). But we finally have our March issue ready…just in time for April!

This month we have a little blast from the past with Team KaiJu–we’ve got a shiny new ebook of their amazing “Inhabitant of Another Planet” debuting today, so in honor of that, we’ve got a re-release of their complete first story for Sparkler, “The Ring of Saturn,” which is connected to “Inhabitant.” Both stories are part of KaiJu’s epic latest work, Novae, which runs on its own site but also makes an appearance as a special preview in this issue! (“Saturn” is a great intro to what terrific storytellers KaiJu are, and even though it’s set during the early days of World War I, several hundred years after “Inhabitant,” you may see some familiar faces… ;-D)

A million thanks again for your support on the Tokyo Demons Kickstarter last month. It was a great success, and voting on the new Stretch Goal merch will start soon. We’ll have more details on the rewards and deliveries for the Orange Junk Kickstarter this month as well–Heldrad is taking April off to work on the new bonus comics for Vol 2-3…and will be joining us at our Dealer’s Table at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival in May! Come say hi!!

And last but not least, we’re finally done with our submissions review–if you haven’t heard from us, definitely give us a ping. Now we’re talking with an exciting bunch of new talent, and we’re eager to share their work with you all in upcoming months!

For our February update, we’ve got dramatic new pages of Knights-Errant, the exciting and possibly romantic(?!) return of Orange Junk, more booze and death in Dead Endings: Book 2 which is now going under the official title Dead Leads (and has a spectacular cover as well–Nasty Women Unite!!), and a new, surprisingly angsty installment of “Before You Go” while things heat up in a big way in Decoy and Retrofit. So we get to bring you a little romance, a whole lot of drama, and some sex and monsters this time around. Hope you like it!

In other news, we’re running a Kickstarter to fund a print run of the complete Tokyo Demons series–we’re almost at our first goal after just 10 days, so let’s see how far we can go to unlock the really fun Stretch Goals we have planned! Speaking of “far,” two of our Sparkler founders are actually completing this update from Japan as they scout locations for the developing Tokyo Ghosts series (and engage in various fujoshi-related activities), and they recorded this month’s Sparkler Podcast about Kickstarter in Tokyo. We look forward to seeing how all their “research” pays off once we kick into the next big arc of the series. Exciting!!

In the meantime, we’re plowing through our final round of submissions review as well, so look forward to that in the near future. And as for other travel, we’re looking forward to running a booth at the first-ever BishounenCon in March! We’ve had a blast at YaoiCon for the past few years, and we can’t wait for this inaugural show of its East Coast edition. See you there?!

Sorry for the short notice, but the Sparkler Shop staff will be away from the shipping office from Feb 6th through Feb 22nd. That means all physical packages (in the mail) that are ordered between those dates will not start shipping until Feb 23rd.

You can still make all your purchases as normal, but we just wanted you to be aware of the unusual delay before the items will ship. Digital products, as always, are automatically emailed as download links and are not effected by this.

We’re well into the new year at this point, and we’ve got a huge new issue for you – although we wanted to share some oldies but goodies along with all the fresh content! Our cover story for the issue is Part 1 of the long-awaited third installment of “Before You Go,” everyone’s favorite sweet girls’ love story. <3 “Before You Go” came to us through our first open submissions process, and it hit us right off the bat as exactly the sort of story we wanted to publish. This third (and final…?) chapter is brought to you by our Year 4 Kickstarter, and it’s been a pleasure to work with Denise Schroeder again. It was an even bigger pleasure to have her join this month’s podcast as well! And since it’s been a while since we ran the first two short stories that make up BYG, we’re bringing them back – in their entirety – in this month’s issue for you to download. Enjoy!

Also coming from Sparkler Classics is the first three chapters (90 whopping pages!) of Studio Kosen‘s sexy fantasy extravaganza Lettera, which was originally published in Spanish. As we dive into the third volume in online serialization, we thought it’d be nice to give the magazine fans a hefty download of the start of the series. If you haven’t read any of Lettera yet, you’re in for a treat! Packed with terrific action, hilarious characters, and more tragic backstory than you can shake a magical staff at, the first chapters are included as part of this issue, and then you can go read a whole other book and a half online (or snag them as cheap, awesome ebooks). You’ve got a lot to look forward to. :-D

And that’s not to mention the new installments of Magical How,Knights-Errant, and the long-awaitedCat Lover’s Circumstancesin this issue! Knights-Errant and Magical How are also adjusting their serialization schedules this month: Knights-Errant is temporarily going to one page a week (Tues), but Magical How is permanently moving to two days a week (Mondays and Wednesdays), hooray! We know the free online readers crave those bickering boys in dresses more than once a week, so you’re getting your wish granted in 2017. \^o^/

The Knights-Errant: Volume 1 paperback edition is officially in wide release – the Kickstarter is mostly fulfilled, so if you weren’t a backer, now you can get your hands on this gorgeousness through the good old Sparkler Shop. (Seriously, these books are so lovely… Everyone did such a great job putting them together!)

For you *ahem* older Sparkler readers, we’ve got a slew of new Cherry Bomb stories leading up to Valentine’s Day, following the steamy Tokyo Demons/Tokyo Ghosts short “X-Mas” (Nick x Ayase) we released a few weeks ago! Plus our East Coast team will be heading to the Dealer’s Room of BishonenCon in March and TCAF in May, so come on by and say hello if you’re at either event. And in the meantime, we’ll be wrapping up our submissions reviews, in addition to tweaking the main Sparkler site for 2017. It’s a lot simpler to buy a membership and get your downloads now – just click “Membership” on the top bar to see everything on one page. Tell your friends. :3

Happy New Year, and may 2017 be bright, peaceful, and prosperous for all.